1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to communication devices and more particularly to systems and devices for remote provisioning of communication devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless communication is one technology that is helping to define today's culture, offering peace of mind to parents and their children. As they live in a world with home and hand-held computers, calculators, pagers and cordless telephones, today's youth are comfortable with wireless technology. Today's youth are taking advantage of the convenience, safety and security offered by wireless communication devices such as cellular telephones and messaging devices. At the same time, parents like the security and improved safety that wireless communication offers. According to a recent survey, eleven (11) percent of children aged five to nine now own a wireless communication device. Ownership among older children is even higher at an estimated thirty (30) percent. Young users are rapidly becoming the area of greatest growth in terms of new wireless customers. Concerns about child abductions have led many parents to give even their very young children wireless communication devices for emergency use.
Further, the capabilities and utility of wireless communication devices is continuing to rapidly increase. Text messaging (including instant messaging), internet access (including software and information downloading), streaming music video and hi-tech games are becoming more accessible on a variety of wireless devices. Youthful consumers can use their wireless communication devices as portable radios, mobile arcades and fashion accessories. Coupled together, the increased use and increased capabilities have caused a major cost containment issue for parents, who ultimately pay the monthly bill for the wireless utilization.
Families are not the only consumers suffering from the increased costs. A recent study found that some business executives regularly run up enormous monthly cellular telephone bills: In addition to the utilization mentioned above, executives run up large usage bills due to conference calling, international calling and, especially, international roaming.
Thus, the need to control wireless communication device usage by administrators, such as parents' control of children's usage and employer's control of employee's usage, has become an economic necessity for many.
One current method to control monthly wireless costs is by using prepaid plans. Drawbacks to prepaid plans include higher startup costs and higher usage charges. Prepaid plans, and the devices that come with them, also may provide less in the way of features and capabilities. Further, with most such plans, as with traditional plans, the pre-paid minutes expire periodically.